The Cabin in the Woods
by MegTDJ
Summary: Sam and Dean are on the case when residents of a small town begin displaying symptoms of what seems to be ghost sickness. But is it really ghost sickness, or is something more sinister at work? And how far will they have to go to stop it?
1. Chapter 1

Title: The Cabin in the Woods  
Author: MegTDJ  
Category: Case fic, hurt/comfort  
Rating: T  
Pairing: None  
Characters: Sam, Dean, Ruby, OCs  
Spoilers: Up to 4x16, On the Head of a Pin.  
Length: 15,000+ words  
Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural. I'm doing this for fun, not profit. The only thing I own is the story itself, so please don't archive this fic without my permission.  
Summary: Sam and Dean are on the case when residents of a small town begin displaying symptoms of what seems to be ghost sickness. But is it really ghost sickness, or is something more sinister at work? And how far will they go to stop it?

Author's notes: It's very important to keep in mind that this fic is set between the events of After School Special (4x13) and Sex & Violence (4x14), but mentions events we find out about in On the Head of a Pin (4x16). I tried to stay within the bounds of canon as much as I could.

I wrote this for Moonshayde's birthday, since she wanted some crazy Dean and to-the-rescue Sam, and her wish is [sometimes] my command. She tells me she enjoyed it, so it has earned the stamp of approval, and now it's time to share it!

I hope anyone who reads it enjoys. Just remember, I'm not an expert at any of the subjects I've written about in here, and _my spelling is Canadian and therefore correct_. Please don't nitpick. Thank you. :P

xxxxxxxxxx

**Chapter 1**

"Another high school?" Dean scowled at the article Sam had brought up on the laptop screen. "What is it with you and school lately?"

Sam rolled his eyes and turned the laptop back around to face him. "It's not just the school, Dean," he said. "That's just where the latest outbreak was centralized. Get this - police and paramedics were only able to enter the building after filling the place with tear gas, and fifteen children were hospitalized with symptoms described as 'red welts on the skin, visual and auditory hallucinations, debilitating anxiety, and in extreme cases, convulsions.' That makes twenty-three cases throughout the town this week, and nobody can explain the disease's origin or how it's spreading."

"So you're thinking ghost sickness."

Sam shrugged and snapped the laptop shut. "Fits, doesn't it?"

Dean winced. "Yeah, but twice in six months? I thought it was supposed to be rare."

"Rare, yes, but it's not impossible. What's the harm in checking it out?"

"What's the harm in checking it out?" Dean repeated in disbelief. "Are you kidding me? You're not the one who almost _died_ last time."

"Well..." Sam hesitated, tilting his head from side to side. "If it's any consolation, I doubt you can contract it twice."

Dean glared at him. "That might be comforting if anyone else had ever survived it in the first place," he grumbled.

"So, we'll be more careful this time, Dean. No autopsies, I promise."

Dean just kept right on glaring. He could have sworn Sam was trying not to laugh.

"Besides, we know how to cure it now," Sam said in all seriousness. "And do you really want all these people to suffer and die like that?"

Dean sighed and drummed his fingers on the table. Of course he didn't want them to suffer and die like that. He just didn't want to suffer and die like that either.

And he _really_ didn't want to relive his hallucinations of Lilith or the memories of Hell that she had stirred up. Still, he was busting for a job, and this was all Sam had been able to find.

"Fine," he said. "We'll take it."

But that didn't mean he had to like it.

It only took them an hour to reach the town. Getting _into_ the town was the biggest problem.

Dean stared at the roadblock in dismay. "Quarantine?" He really hated towns that only had one road in or out.

"If the town has been locked down like this, I doubt our Health Department guise is gonna fly," Sam said. He squinted to get a better look through the car window at the vehicles parked around the blockade. "They're probably already here."

"So, what do you think? FBI?"

Sam shook his head and pointed at a black van half hidden from view behind a police car. "They're here, too."

"Crap." Dean sighed. "What, then?"

Sam shrugged. "They're not blocking off the woods."

Dean wanted to protest, but he knew Sam was right. It would mean hiking uphill through a mile's worth of trees and God knew what else, carrying bags full of pretty much everything in the trunk just in case it was needed, but it would get them there. Providing they weren't caught in the meantime.

He pulled a U-turn and found a secluded spot down the road to park the car. Once he and Sam had packed as much into their bags as they could hold, they cut across the street and aimed for the tree line.

Dean grimaced when he got a good look at the dense foliage they had to wade through. Suddenly that one mile seemed so much longer.

"Heigh-ho, heigh-ho," he said. Off to work they went.

Or at least they tried. Dean could tell before they'd gone ten feet that not too many hikers ventured into these woods. Not only were they creepy as hell, they were also downright dangerous. He hoped they wouldn't end up needing a quick getaway - even without the closely-packed trees, all the roots and tangled brush under their feet would make running impossible.

He glared at his brother's back as Sam led the way. This was the last time in a long time that he'd let Sam pick their next case.

"Are we there yet?" he asked after they'd been wading through trees for at least ten minutes.

Sam turned around just long enough to shoot him a dark look. "Not even close."

Dean grumbled obscenities under his breath and yelped when a tree branch smacked him in the face. He glared at Sam's back twice as hard when he heard him chuckle. "Not funny, bitch."

"Then quit whining, jerk."

Dean dodged just in time to avoid the next branch Sam whipped back at him. He grunted angrily and shoved his way past him. "I'm taking point if you're gonna be a jackass about it."

"Be my guest."

Much to Dean's annoyance, Sam stayed too far behind him to fall for the branch-in-the-face trick himself, so aside from the crackle of twigs under their boots and the sound of their increasingly laboured breathing, the next few minutes passed in silence. It was just as well - what with the weight on his back, the rough terrain, and the ever-steepening slope, Dean had no breath left for talking. He barely had breath left for breathing.

Because of this, he thought for a moment that it was a mirage when he suddenly broke through the trees and found himself in a peaceful little clearing complete with a bubbling stream and a homey little cottage. He blinked in surprise and turned to see if Sam was seeing it, too.

From the slack-jawed look on Sam's face as he came up behind him, Dean was pretty sure he was.

"Huh," Sam said. "Wonder if anybody's home?"

"More importantly," Dean said as he staggered toward the cottage, "I wonder if they have pie. I'm starving."

He jerked to a stop when he felt a sharp whack to the back of his head.

"Ow!" he cried, spinning around to face Sam. "Dude! What the hell was that?"

Sam shrugged sheepishly. "Mosquito."

"Mos..." Dean rolled his eyes and cuffed Sam on the side of his head in retaliation. "I can kill 'em myself, you know."

"Geez, just trying to help."

Dean felt victorious when Sam rubbed the side of his head to alleviate the sting. Served him right. Why the guy was inflicting as much bodily harm today as possible he didn't know, but he planned on making him pay for it later. He just hoped nobody inside the cottage had witnessed their Laurel and Hardy act.

They appeared to be at the back of the house, so they traipsed around to the front, noting as they went that the place didn't seem to have many windows. There were none at all on the ground floor, at least on the sides of the house they could see. It made Dean suspicious. People with no windows had something to hide.

He patted Sam's arm as they reached the front porch, indicating with raised eyebrows that he wanted to tread carefully. Sam nodded, and they climbed the steps together.

There was a doorbell beside the door, so Dean pushed it. They waited for an answer, but thirty seconds passed with no movement from inside the house.

"Hello?" Dean called, pressing the doorbell again. "Anybody here?" He could hear the doorbell chime inside, and the place was tiny. There was no way they weren't being heard. Either nobody was home, or they were being ignored.

He exchanged a curious look with Sam, who shrugged his shoulders. Without a second thought, Dean lightly turned the doorknob, looking casually over his shoulder to make sure they weren't being watched.

The door swung open with no effort whatsoever. Practically a written invitation as far as Dean was concerned.

He poked his head around the doorframe. "Hello?"

Still no answer.

He was about to step inside when Sam grabbed his arm. Dean shot him an impatient look. "What?"

"What exactly are we doing here, Dean?" Sam asked in a whisper. "Shouldn't we keep heading into town?"

"What, we can't make a pit stop?"

"If someone was home, yeah. What are we gonna do, steal their food?"

Dean considered this for a moment, but he realized that saying yes would only prolong the argument. "Maybe nobody lives here at all," he said. "Might be a good place to squat while we're here."

Sam gave him a wry look. "You really think no one lives here?" he said, pointing to the floor just inside the door.

Dean looked down. A pair of men's sneakers were sitting neatly on a spotless doormat. "Oh."

"Let's just go, okay?" Sam pulled on his arm as he headed back down the steps.

Dean hesitated, trusting his gut instinct that something was off about this place. He yanked his arm out of Sam's grasp when he suddenly realized what it was. "Hey, come back up here," he said, pushing the door open further and getting as close to the threshold as he could without stepping across it. "Do you smell that?"

Sam came to stand beside him again and leaned over Dean's shoulder to sniff the air. "What is that?" he said. "Asafoetida?"

"Yeah."

They both dropped their bags and drew their guns simultaneously. They'd been around long enough to know what that smell meant - spell work, and not the harmless kind. In a town where people were contracting a mysterious illness from an unknown source, a house in the middle of the woods that smelled of major league Hoodoo was what Dean would consider a lead. Whoever lived here had officially forfeited their right to privacy.

Dean led the way inside with Sam following close behind, both careful not to make a sound. There was a staircase just inside the entryway leading up to the second floor. Dean motioned for Sam to take it while he moved further into the main room, toward what appeared to be the kitchen.

For a floor with no windows, it seemed otherwise pretty unremarkable. There was a ceiling light on in the main room, revealing a plump couch, two high-backed chairs, and a plain old coffee table. There were no ornaments or decorations aside from a cuckoo clock on the wall, which gave the room an unauthentic vibe but wasn't really cause for alarm.

The kitchen was no different - there was just enough light shining through the doorway for him to see that there were plates and cutlery in the sink and a frying pan on the stove, but that everything else was neatly in its place. Almost _too_ neatly. He was starting to think they'd stumbled across the home of some OCD freak who had been chased out of town for being too damn tidy.

But then, there was that smell. He sniffed the air, trying to figure out where it was coming from. He opened a few cupboards and drawers to see if he could find any asafoetida kicking around, but he found nothing but boxes and cans of food and some cooking utensils.

What the hell?

He jumped when Sam suddenly appeared behind him.

"Anything?" Sam asked.

Dean shook his head. "You?"

"Nothing. Just a bedroom and a bathroom, both empty aside from the standard furniture. Not even any books or knick-knacks or anything."

"Yeah." Dean tapped his finger on the kitchen counter, looking thoughtfully around the room. "Notice what's missing here?"

"Aside from pretty much everything?"

Dean gave him an impatient look. "Where's the basement?" he said.

"No door?"

"Not that I've seen."

"Huh." Sam turned and started poking around the kitchen, tapping the walls with his knuckles and the floor with his foot, looking for a hidden door. Dean went back to the front room and did the same thing.

Two minutes later, they met up again in the kitchen doorway. They'd both come up empty.

"There's gotta be more to this place," Dean said with a sigh of frustration. "Maybe the door's outside."

They headed back to the front door, but Sam tapped Dean's arm before he had a chance to open it. "Hold up a sec," he said. "I want to try something."

He went over to the staircase and crouched down in front of it, poking at the floor around the bottom step.

"I already looked there, man," Dean said, going for the front door again. "No trapdoor, no nothing."

With that, Sam lifted the staircase.

Dean blinked in surprise at the sight of it rising above Sam's head and revealing a descending staircase underneath it. "How the hell did you know it did that?"

Sam grinned and shrugged. "Only place we hadn't looked."

Dean rolled his eyes and cautiously followed Sam down the stairs into the deep, dark basement. To his relief, the moveable staircase stayed firmly in place above their heads, laying his fears of decapitation to rest.

Until Sam reached the bottom step, and some kind of built-in mechanism began to lower it back into place. Dean ducked and hurried down the rest of the steps before he got smacked in the head yet again.

And then they were in darkness.

Dean fumbled for his flashlight, beating Sam to it by a fraction of a second. Once they regained their sight enough to look around, they both stood slack-jawed in amazement.

The symbols were the first thing that caught Dean's attention - they were all over the walls, written either in blood or in very convincing-looking red paint. Most appeared to be Hoodoo, but he recognized a few from other dark practices, and at least one devil's trap had been hastily scrawled onto the ceiling.

But they didn't hold his attention for long. Not when there were half a dozen tables full of science lab equipment set up all over the room, complete with steaming test tubes, bubbling beakers, and petri dishes full of pink slime.

His gaze was then attracted by the full set of bookshelves along one wall, which appeared to contain books on both science and the occult, judging from the pictures and symbols on the spines. There was so much to take in that his eyes kept darting back and forth between it all, not knowing what they should be staring at the most.

"Good God almighty," Dean muttered. "It's like The Craft meets The Nutty Professor in here."

"What the hell _is_ this place?" Sam asked in amazement. "Think they're, what... mixing science with black magic?"

"Bound to happen sometime," Dean said, stepping closer to one of the tables to get a better look at the blue liquid in one of the beakers.

"Don't touch anything, Dean."

Dean spun around to glare at Sam. "You really think I _want_ to?"

Sam shifted his weight nervously from one foot to the other and back again as he looked around. "Maybe we should get out of here," he said. "You know, until we get a better idea of what we're dealing with."

Dean hated to admit it, but he wholeheartedly agreed. He was definitely not comfortable being locked in this room much longer, especially with all the scents his mind was beginning to register from all the potions boiling around him. Whoever this dude... or chick... was, they were messing with some pretty serious crap. His senses were already starting to fog over, and this was not the kind of high he would enjoy.

"Any idea how we'll open the door, or... _stairs_ again?" he asked as they hurried over to them.

Sam shrugged and placed his foot on the bottom step. Sure enough, the upstairs staircase rose above their heads.

They didn't waste a second in getting the hell out of there.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

Sam hurried out of the cottage with Dean close behind him. Boy, was he glad to be out of that place. The smell in that basement had quickly become overwhelming.

He turned back once he reached the bottom of the front steps to see Dean close the door behind him and walk down the steps with a slight stagger. "You okay?" Sam asked, reaching out a hand to steady him.

Dean brushed off Sam's help and laughed. "Fumes in there gave me a bit of a buzz," he said, leaning against the side of the porch and shaking his head to clear it. "Hoo! Not a good trip."

Sam watched him in concern as he blinked heavily and raised a hand to his forehead as if he were dizzy. "Dean?" he said quietly, edging toward him to rest a hand on his back without Dean noticing. "Sure you're okay?"

Dean looked at him as though he were about to protest his close proximity, but once he got a look at Sam's face, a brief flicker of anxiety passed over his face. "You're not feeling this?"

Sam shook his head. "I feel fine," he said. "The smell was intense, but... no buzz."

Dean looked confused for a second, but then he seemed to understand what Sam was thinking. "What, you think I'm sick or somethin'?" he said with an edge of anger in his tone. "Not this time, man. I just got closer to the stuff than you did, that's all." He pushed Sam aside and started walking away from the house, his gait steady and straight. He turned around victoriously on his heel and held out his arms as he walked back again. "See? It's wearing off already. Now let's go see what we can find out about the son of a bitch who lives here." He grabbed his bag from the top of the porch steps and hauled it onto his shoulder, marching back into the woods in the direction of the town without another word.

Sam sighed and picked up his bag to follow. He wasn't sure what the whole thing had been about, but he intended to watch Dean like a hawk for the next while just to be sure he was okay.

It took them a few minutes of hiking to get to the outskirts of the town, and by the time they got there Dean seemed to be himself again. Sam wasn't sure if he was just faking it to avoid suspicion or if the effects of whatever it was had really worn off, but pretty soon they had more pressing concerns. The first building they saw upon reaching the edge of the woods was the high school.

The place was sealed off with police tape, but nobody much was around aside from a couple of cops who were doing a pretty bad job of guarding it. Sam and Dean had no trouble sneaking inside to take a look around.

"So, the school backs onto the woods where the crazy witch-slash-scientist lives?" Dean said in a low voice once they were sure they were alone in the school's main hallway. "Seems like more than a coincidence for this place to be a hotzone for whatever was cooking in that basement."

"You've just gotta wonder if this was the main target or a trial run," Sam said.

"Trial run? He hit fifteen people here at once. The other eight cases were all just random."

"Could have been accidents, or he might be working his way up to something bigger," Sam said. "That's how terrorists do it."

"So, you think this guy's a terrorist?" Dean gave him a doubtful look.

Sam shrugged. "Stranger things," he said. "Come on, the cafeteria's probably this way."

He led the way to the scene of the incident, which would have been easy enough to identify even if they hadn't known where it had all gone down - all they had to do was follow the police tape and the trails of blood and debris left over from the panic-caused riot.

The cafeteria itself looked like a bomb had gone off. Food was splattered all over the place, tables were overturned, trays and plates and cutlery were strewn about, battered textbooks and random personal items were littered everywhere, and mixed in with it all was blood. A lot of blood. To top it all off, Sam could still smell a trace of tear gas in the air.

"Holy crap."

Dean kicked aside a science book as he wandered further into the room. "That article didn't make it sound this bad," he said gravely.

"No, it didn't." Sam winced as the images of crazed and terrified teenagers floated through his mind. "It did say some of the kids and teachers sustained life-threatening injuries, but God... they must have been tearing each other to pieces."

"Uh... yeah, I'd say so," Dean said, turning away from an overturned table with a grossed-out look on his face. "Just found a finger."

Sam shook his head in disbelief. "What the hell, man?"

"I don't know." Dean rubbed the back of his neck as he scanned the rest of the room with anxious eyes. "But we've gotta stop this guy before this entire town goes insane."

"Yeah, ya think?"

Dean stepped carefully through the rubble toward the door. "Let's get out of here," he said. "This place is giving me the creeps."

Sam couldn't agree more.

When they left the school, they could see that it wouldn't be quite as easy to skate past the cops and FBI on their way into the main part of town. They decided to make a detour around the outskirts first and see if they could find somewhere to stash their stuff and call home during their stay. Sam's pack was starting to feel unbearably heavy, and Dean was definitely sagging under the weight of his. They claimed the first rundown barn they came across, dumping their packs and changing into their FBI suits just in case. They were ready and on the road again within minutes.

"So, what should our first step be here?" Sam asked as they walked toward the town's main street. "I mean, we can't exactly go knocking on people's doors when the real FBI is already doing that."

Dean rubbed the back of his neck as he thought it over. "Police records are gonna be hard to get," he said, gesturing down the street to what appeared to be the police station. It was crawling with cops and feds, from that distance appearing like a beehive with uniformed bees buzzing in and out and around it, along with frightened civilians who seemed to be hovering around in search of answers.

Sam looked up and down the street, trying to act as casual as he could in case they were spotted by curious onlookers. He settled on a large building half a block down from the police station that looked important yet seemed to be free of crowds. "Think that's the library?" he asked, pointing.

Dean followed his gaze and nodded. "Worth a try," he said, leading the way.

They walked right past the police station, passing along the edge of the crowd with a purposeful stride as though they belonged there and knew exactly where they were going. They went straight up to the library's front door, even though it would more than likely be locked. Sam got himself into position to casually pick the lock as though fumbling with a key, but it proved to be unnecessary. The doors swung open with a slight tug.

They entered cautiously, looking around to see if anyone was inside. "Anybody here?" Sam called. "FBI. We need you all to return to your homes immediately."

No answer.

"They probably just forgot to lock up," Dean said. He glanced nervously out the window at the crowd still gathered around the police station. "Think they'll come back?"

"Let's just find the property records and get out of here," Sam said. "I'll look upstairs."

He started moving toward the winding staircase in the middle of the library's main room, but stopped when he realized that Dean wasn't following. He was just standing there, still staring out the window.

"Dean?"

"I think somebody spotted us," Dean said in a low voice. "There's a couple cops out there that keep looking over here."

Sam sighed. "All the more reason for us to find the property records and get out of here," he said as though chiding a five year old. He grabbed Dean by the shoulders and pulled him away from the window, ushering him in the direction of the stairs.

"Alright, alright," Dean said, shoving Sam away. "No need to get testy."

They hurried up the stairs, but they hadn't gotten very far with their search before they were distracted by a noise down on the ground floor.

"I told you," Dean whispered with a pointed glare.

Sam shrugged and shook his head as they moved quickly to find a place to hide. He didn't know what Dean's problem was, but he sure hoped he'd snap out of it soon. They crouched down behind a long, low bookcase near the stairs and waited.

"I know I saw them come in here."

Sam leaned closer to the stairwell to better hear the voices coming from down below.

"You sure they weren't around earlier?"

"Positive. They ain't no townies, and I met all the FBI guys when they first arrived."

"Alright, you check upstairs. I got the back rooms."

Dean was getting impatient, situated too far from the stairwell to hear what the men were saying, so Sam answered his nudge with a hand motion to indicate that they were about to have company. Then he started scanning what little of the second floor he could see, looking for anything even remotely resembling an escape route. The last thing they needed right now was to get arrested and be stuck in a jail cell while this entire town went insane. Unfortunately, all he could see were books and a large paned window facing the street that was crawling with cops. Great.

The guy took his sweet time tiptoeing up the stairs, but finally Sam caught a glimpse of his balding head as he walked right past their hiding place. He seemed to be muttering something under his breath as he scanned the aisles on the other side of the room, but he was too far away for Sam to make out the words. It was clear that he hadn't seen them, though, so they still had a chance. Sam readied himself for a quick run to the stairs as soon as the guy's back was turned.

Suddenly, Dean gripped his arm. "Did you see his eyes?" he hissed into Sam's ear.

Sam shook his head. "What about 'em?"

"It's Alastair."

Sam did a double take between Dean and the back of the cop's head. "How do you..."

"You didn't hear what he was saying? He knows it's us, man. He's not gonna let us out of here alive."

Dean's eyes were wide with genuine fear, and it sent a chill down Sam's spine. Still, it couldn't be Alastair... could it? "Dean, Alastair is dead," he said as he watched the man disappear behind one of the bookcases lining the far end of the room. "Anna killed him, remember?"

"Not necessarily. I'm telling you, man, it's him."

"Then we should go while he's out of sight." Sam grabbed Dean's arm to pull him over to the stairs, but Dean was already moving in the other direction. "Dean!" he said in a fierce whisper.

"I'm not letting him get away again," Dean said, drawing Ruby's knife from his belt as he crept along to the other end of the low bookcase.

In those few seconds, a million thoughts ran through Sam's mind. If Alastair really was possessing that cop, then Ruby's knife probably wasn't going to be enough to take him down. Not to mention that if Alastair was behind what was going on in this town, they had stepped into some pretty serious apocalyptic crap, which meant that attacking Alastair now would just bring more demons out of the woodwork. They weren't anywhere near prepared for that kind of attack.

Either way, he had no way of stopping Dean in time without drawing attention to their hiding place. There was really only one thing that he could do. He just prayed that the blood he'd downed two weeks earlier would be enough to at least hold Alastair in place and increase Dean's chances of stabbing him directly in the heart.

Sam rose to his feet as the cop came back into view. He was still facing the opposite direction, so they at least had the element of surprise on their side. Sam raised his hand and felt the demon blood stirring in his veins as he concentrated all of his power on...

Nothing.

There was no demon inside the man at all.

"Dean, no!"

He ran forward just as Dean leapt out from behind the bookcase and lunged for the innocent police officer with the knife raised.

Everything happened so fast, but he felt like he was moving in slow motion as he watched the cop draw his gun and Dean prepare to strike. He knew he was running as fast as he could, but the cop had managed to dodge the knife and fire his gun before Sam threw himself between them, knocking Dean to the ground and wrestling the gun out of the cop's hands. Before the cop could even blink twice, Sam had pistol-whipped him into unconsciousness.

By then, he could hear the cop's partner calling for backup and running up the stairs. Sam fired the gun into the air to hold the guy off, but he knew he had no time to lose. He quickly hauled Dean to his feet and practically carried him through to the back of the building. He knew there had to be a fire escape somewhere. Hell, even a window they could throw themselves through would do in a pinch, although Dean's near-unconscious form would make a safe landing somewhat difficult.

All he found were steps leading up to the roof. Having no time to make an informed decision, he took them. He vaguely remembered that the library sat very close to the building next door, whatever it was, and any slim chance of escape was a chance he was willing to take.

He could hear cops swarming into the building as he dragged Dean up the stairs and burst out onto the roof. He didn't even let himself take a second to glance over at his brother to see if and where the bullet had hit, knowing that he couldn't do a damn thing for him unless he got them both out of there alive. He searched around frantically for a way out, and almost collapsed with relief when he saw that a building slightly lower than the library backed onto it with only a few short feet between them.

"Okay," he said, attempting to steady Dean on his own two feet at the edge of the roof. "We gotta jump, Dean."

Dean swayed a little, and his face looked tight with pain, but he nodded.

Sam wrapped Dean's arm around his shoulders and gripped him securely around the waist. "On three," he said, ignoring the approaching footsteps on the stairs behind them. "One... two..."


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

The room was spinning when Dean finally managed to crack his eyes open. He found this extremely disappointing, considering the amount of effort he'd put into it. He sighed and closed them again.

"Dean?"

He sensed motion beside him, but he didn't bother trying to open his eyes a second time. "Where are we?"

Sam huffed ironically. "Home sweet home. That barn we found, remember?"

Dean grunted in the affirmative. "Did Alastair follow us?"

Sam seemed to pause for a second. "No," he said shortly. "How are you feeling?"

Dean thought this was a stupid question at first, until his mind registered the throbbing pain in his side. "What the hell?" He moved his hand to touch it and found a bandage wrapped tightly around his middle.

"You were shot," Sam said. "Just a flesh wound. You'll be fine."

Despite the dizziness, Dean forced his eyes to open again so that he could look his brother in the face. He could hear the lie in his voice, so he knew something must be seriously wrong. "What happened?"

Sam shifted uncomfortably on the wooden floor where he was seated next to the pile of blankets serving as Dean's bed. "What do you remember?" he asked carefully.

Dean searched his memory and winced. "I remember jumping off the roof," he said, casually flexing his fingers and toes to make sure he hadn't broken his back in the fall. Sam looked way too worried for his only injury to be a simple flesh wound.

"Yeah, you pretty much blacked out as soon as we landed," Sam said, noticeably avoiding eye contact. "I had to throw you into a dumpster and carry you back here on my shoulders. I don't think the cops saw which direction we went."

Dean nodded as much as his dizziness would allow. "A dumpster, huh? That explains why I smell rotten potatoes."

Sam smiled in response, but Dean could read him like a book. Something was eating away at the kid.

"So, what aren't you telling me?"

Sam took a deep breath. Another bad sign.

"Sam."

"Well..." Sam squirmed again. "The whole... Alastair thing?"

"Yeah?"

"It... wasn't Alastair."

Dean was confused for a second, but then he sighed in frustration and carefully lifted an arm to rub the back of his neck. He wished Sam would just tell him what the hell he was talking about already. "So... what?" he said. "It was Lilith? I kinda doubt she was possessing a dude all of a sudden."

Sam shook his head. "Dean... there was no demon in that cop."

Dean stared at him for a long moment, trying to gauge how serious he was. "I saw his eyes go white, Sam," he said. "I heard him talking to us. It was him."

Sam just kept on shaking his head sadly.

"How the hell do you know?" Dean asked, wanting to sit up and slap the guy, but the pain in his side preventing him from doing either.

"Because I tried my..." Sam gingerly lifted his hand, as though somehow demonstrating the action of pulling a demon made it less controversial than saying the words. "There was no demon in him. Why do you think he shot you?"

Now that Dean started thinking about it, he had to admit the gun hadn't really made sense. But he could have sworn...

He suddenly realized where Sam was going with this.

"It just... must have been a trick of the light," he said. "It can happen."

Sam's look of sorrow and sympathy didn't change.

Dean raised a warning finger. "Don't even think it."

"Dean..."

"I am not sick, Sam."

"You thought you were in Hell."

The words were spoken gently, but they hit Dean like a punch in the gut. If he could have sat up, he would have passed the feeling along to Sam. "What are you talking about?" he said, his low tone a warning for Sam to choose his words carefully.

Sam clenched his jaw and looked down at his hands, shaking his head sadly. "On our way back here... you kept trying to fight me, like you thought I was... trying to torture you."

Dean closed his eyes against the increasing dizziness that accompanied Sam's words. "I don't remember any of that," he said firmly.

"You were pretty out of it."

Rage welled up inside of him, mostly over the idea that Sam had witnessed him in his weakest state. Supernatural disease be damned, he never wanted his kid brother seeing him like that. "So you're saying I have this... whatever this damn thing is?" he said, massaging his temples against the dizziness and anger.

"I don't know how, but... yeah."

A thought suddenly occurred to Dean, and he lowered his hand to look Sam in the eye again. "Unless it's you," he said. "You could just as easily have hallucinated me hallucinating."

Sam's expression didn't waver as he leaned over and grabbed Dean's arm. Dean tried to pull it away, but Sam quickly pushed back the sleeve over his forearm and raised it for Dean to see.

Dean's arm was covered in ugly red welts.

"Ah, crap."

"Yeah." Sam gently set Dean's arm back down and sighed. "They started springing up a few minutes ago."

Dean clenched his jaw and forced himself to accept the situation and start thinking of solutions. Still, the question had to be asked... "How?"

Sam shook his head. "I don't know, man. The stuff in that basement, something we came in contact with at the school... it could have been anything."

"But you're okay?"

Sam shrugged. "So far so good."

Dean tried not to question the fairness or logic in that and just focused on the relief. Sam was okay, which meant they weren't completely screwed just yet. "It's probably fair to say whatever this is is airborne," he said, making a valiant attempt to ignore the feelings of fear and panic that were welling up in his mind. "I packed a couple masks in my bag. Take 'em with you when you go back out there."

Sam didn't reply. When Dean looked back over at him, he was just sitting there staring down at his hands. Something else was bugging him.

"What?"

Sam sighed and shook his head. "Dean, the whole town is looking for us. I don't know how I can step out that door again without being found and arrested, let alone wander around town looking for clues."

"So, what... you're just gonna sit here and watch me die?"

"Of course not. I just said I don't know _how_... yet."

Dean's gaze slowly drifted over Sam's shoulder as he spoke. "Better think of something fast," he said quietly, "'cause I'm guessing that demon smoke isn't really pouring through the cracks in the door."

Sam spun around to look, but soon turned back to Dean with a look of pity on his face. "I don't see anything," he said, his tone suggesting he was delivering a death sentence rather than a reassurance.

"Great." Dean clapped a hand over his eyes so he couldn't see the gathering cloud of darkness, but he could still hear the hissing and feel it swirling around him. He managed to bite back his panic, but it took all of his strength of will just to hold himself still. "Sam?"

"Yeah."

He reached a hand out blindly and groped around until he found Sam's arm. He gripped it like a life preserver and yanked Sam closer. "As much as I don't want to be left alone right now," he gasped out through the fear that was slowly choking him, "get the hell out there and make this stop."

"Okay. It's okay. Just hang in there, Dean."

Those were the last words Dean heard Sam say before the chains wrapped around his wrists and ankles and Sam's voice was swallowed up in the all too familiar, bone-chilling sounds of Hell.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox

Sam crashed through the woods like a wild animal, knowing that stealth meant slowing down and that he didn't have a second to lose. The image of a terrified Dean thrashing against his restraints as Sam had futilely tried to calm him down was still burned onto his retina so clearly that he thought he would never be able to close his eyes again. He had never seen his brother so out of his mind with fear or so desperate to escape. The ghost sickness had nothing on whatever was happening to the people in this town.

If only he knew what that something _was_.

He thought of calling Bobby, but there wasn't much he could do without more information, and there was no way Sam wanted to bring other hunters into this town just to end up like Dean. He had to figure out what was going on all by himself this time. But first there was something he had to do.

Sticking to the woods that bordered the town made it less likely that he would be discovered and arrested, but it also made his trip twice as long as it would otherwise have been. Thankfully, it was getting dark by the time he reached the building he was looking for - a small, converted farmhouse they had passed on their way into town earlier in the day.

Every light in the place was on, but it didn't matter. Sam knew exactly what he'd come for, and he'd be damned if he was going to leave without it.

He scaled the fence at the back of the house and drew his gun as he crept closer to peer in through the back window. A middle-aged man and woman were sitting in parallel easy chairs in what appeared to be their living room, talking to each other so intently that they hadn't noticed Sam at all. He hesitated for a moment as he looked at them. They seemed to be nice, honest folk who didn't deserve what was about to happen to them, but Sam had too much at stake for him to consider the feelings of total strangers, and he was running out of time. The memory of Dean's condition moments before Sam had left the barn flashed through his mind one more time, the sound of him screaming in terror for Sam to save him still ringing in his ears.

Sam tiptoed up the back steps, took a deep breath, and kicked open the door.

"Stay right where you are!" he yelled as the couple jumped to their feet, the woman giving a startled cry. "Do exactly as I say and no one gets hurt, understand?"

The woman tearfully agreed and raised her trembling arms in the air, but the man remained surprisingly calm. "What is it you want, son?" he asked in a gentle tone.

"You're the veterinarian?"

The man nodded.

"I need sedatives," Sam said, waving his gun toward the doorway leading through to the front of the house. "Morphine, Valium... whatever you've got."

The man didn't move.

"Now!"

At a frightened cry from his wife, the doctor finally turned and moved toward the doorway behind him. Sam motioned for the woman to follow her husband as well, and the three of them walked through to the clinic at the front of the house. The doctor stopped in front of a locked door, pulled a key from his pocket, and unlocked it, revealing a closet full of drugs and medical supplies. He pulled out a bottle of Valium and handed it to Sam.

"This is all you've got?" Sam asked, giving him a warning glare as he stuffed the bottle into one of his jacket pockets.

"This is a small, private clinic," the doctor said apologetically. "We don't keep many sedatives on hand."

Sam didn't buy it for a second. "Please," he said, trying to sound as reasonable as he could while still maintaining a threatening attitude, "I'm not a junkie or a dealer. I just really need the best sedatives you've got."

"J-just give him the morphine," his wife stammered nervously.

Sam tightened his grip on his gun to show the doctor he was serious. No way was he letting this guy hold out on him.

To his surprise, the doctor sighed and said, "You need this for someone with... the sickness?"

Sam blinked and nodded. "Yeah, how'd you know?"

"I spoke to the sheriff earlier," he said. "He told me about what happened at the library. Everyone in town is looking for you and your friend. Seemed like your buddy'd got this virus or whatever the hell it is, and if that's true, there's nothing that can be done for him outside of a hospital."

"You don't understand," Sam said, lowering his gun as he started to get the sense that this was a man he could talk to, "that guy is my brother, and we came here to try to help this town, but if I take him to the hospital or we turn ourselves in, we'll only end up in jail. Please, I just need to get him sedated while I try to figure out how to stop this."

"If the CDC can't find the answer, what makes you think you can find it all on your own?"

Sam's impatience was rising, but he forced himself to hold it back and try to gain the guy's trust. "Because we don't think this is a virus," he said matter-of-factly. "We think someone's doing this on purpose, probably using some kind of weird science mixed with spellwork."

The doctor's eyes narrowed with suspicion. "Spellwork."

"That's right."

"And... how do I know that you and your brother didn't cause all this to begin with, and everything you're telling me now isn't just a load of bull?"

Sam shrugged his shoulders helplessly. "You don't. But I think the fact that I didn't just kill you both and raid your supplies the second I burst through your back door should tell you something."

The doctor continued sizing Sam up for a long moment before nodding and reaching behind some of the bottles in his supply closet. He pulled one out that Sam could see was morphine. He handed it to Sam, along with a handful of syringes he pulled out of a box. "You know how much to administer?"

"Yes, sir."

The man pursed his lips and nodded. "Is there anything else?"

Sam took the bottle and syringes with a nod of thanks. "Actually..." he said as he tucked the items into his pockets, "there is one more thing... do you know who lives in that little cottage in the woods behind the school?"

The doctor nodded slowly. "That's Gavin Chamberlain's place," he said. "Why?"

"You don't happen to know what this Gavin Chamberlain is like, do you?"

The doctor glanced at his wife, both of them looking thoughtful. "Reclusive," he said. "Doesn't socialize much, or even come into town unless he can help it."

"He went to school with our son," the doctor's wife said, her nerves finally eased now that Sam's gun was out of sight. "He was always very smart, but troubled."

"Yes," the doctor agreed. "The other boys picked on him so much that nobody was surprised when he built that place for himself in the middle of nowhere. Such a shame. He was such a bright boy."

The more they spoke, the more things started to make sense in Sam's mind. Troubled, bullied genius builds himself an isolated cabin with a hidden basement where he can conduct his scientific experiments and black magic spells undisturbed. It even explained why he'd chosen the high school as his ground zero.

"Thank you," Sam said, and without wasting another moment he turned and ran out the way he'd come.

This outing had proven way more profitable than he'd hoped.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Despite the fact that Dean was gagged, Sam could still hear his screams as he approached the barn. The noise turned out to be a blessing in disguise once he got inside - Dean wasn't where Sam had left him. Somehow, even though Sam had securely bound Dean's wrists and ankles and had used all the bales of moldy hay and sacks of seed he could find to pen him into a corner, Dean had managed to squirm and crawl clear across the barn and had burrowed in between a wall and a rusted up piece of farming equipment.

Sam was just thankful that he hadn't found the door or cut himself to pieces on the jagged edges of the thing, but now he had to figure out how to coax Dean out of there.

"Dean?" Sam squatted down and reached behind the contraption to give him a slight shake. "Come on, man. It's me. It's Sam."

Dean moved his head to peer out at Sam fearfully. Sam took the opportunity to swiftly remove the gag from his mouth. Dean flinched at the sudden movement and inched further back under the equipment. "Stay back!" he cried. "No more!"

"Okay." Sam held up his hands. "But I'm not gonna hurt you, Dean. I'm just here to help."

"Yeah, that's what they all say," Dean said, his eyes darting from one imaginary threat to another. "Just stay the hell away from me!"

Sam sighed and fingered the bottle of morphine in his pocket. He knew it would be easy enough to knock Dean out and drag him out of his hiding place, but he couldn't stand the thought of basically attacking him when he was in the middle of a hellish delusion.

Suddenly, he had an idea.

"Hey," he said in a hushed, confiding voice. He crouched down closer to Dean, trying to appear as non-threatening as possible. He looked around for a moment as though making sure no one was listening in, and then said, "I can get you out of here."

"Why should I believe that?"

"The way I see it, you've got nothing to lose if I'm lying. But if I'm telling the truth... I can rescue you."

A glimmer of hope and even recognition seemed to appear in Dean's eyes, and Sam could have sworn for a moment that Dean was returning to himself again.

But then he said in a small, plaintive voice, "Castiel?"

The name was like a kick in the stomach to Sam, even though he knew the instant it was spoken that it made perfect sense - Castiel had rescued Dean from Hell, so to his delusional mind, that was what was happening here. Still, it hurt to be reminded yet again that he wasn't always the one that Dean trusted and relied on more than anyone.

With a heavy heart, he smiled and played along. "Yes, it's me, Dean. Come out of there, and I'll take you home."

It took Dean a minute or two to wriggle out from under the machinery - he seemed to have expended all his energy on getting there and could barely even move now that the adrenaline was wearing off. By the time Sam could reach his hands to untie them, Dean had all but lost consciousness. He didn't even attempt to put up a fight as Sam dragged him the rest of the way out into the open and hoisted him up on his shoulders to carry him back to his makeshift bed. Somehow, that worried Sam even more than the hallucinations.

Dean was a total dead weight by the time Sam went to lay him down on the pile of blankets. He did it as carefully as he could considering that Dean wasn't exactly a small guy, and as he slipped his hand behind Dean's neck to support his head, he felt a weird bump just below his hairline. He turned Dean's head to the side to get a look at it and saw that it was a bright red welt with a raised center.

His first reaction was to shrug it off. After all, Dean's entire body was covered in red welts similar to this one. But something about it made him pause. For one thing, it was much smaller than the welts on his arms. Also, none of the others had a raised center like this one. This one seemed almost like an insect bite.

As soon as this thought occurred to him, he remembered the mosquito he had seen on Dean's neck as they'd entered the clearing around Gavin Chamberlain's house. And then he remembered what month it was.

"Since when are mosquitoes around in January?" he muttered aloud.

Suddenly he felt like a complete idiot.

Knowing he couldn't afford to waste a minute of darkness, he quickly gave Dean a shot of the morphine, secured him again in his corner, and left the barn in the direction of the secluded cottage. Now that he knew how the bastard was doing it, he was anxious to confront this Gavin Chamberlain guy and give him a taste of his own medicine.

The late evening was cold and an icy rain was falling, so Sam was pretty sure he was safe for the moment from any poisonous bugs Chamberlain might have unleashed in the woods. Even so, he moved as quickly as he could and kept all of his senses on high alert, even risking using his flashlight once he got farther away from the town and closer to the cottage.

This risk soon paid off - as Sam entered the clearing, he saw a flicker of movement from the corner of his eye and swatted away a mosquito just in time. "Great, super-bugs," he said, suddenly feeling itchy all over. He shook himself off as he hurried up to the cottage. There was no way he was letting himself get bitten now.

He switched off his flashlight and readied his gun as he climbed the porch steps, and since there was no way to know from outside whether or not there was anyone home, he rapped quietly on the door and waited a moment to see if anyone stirred inside. He didn't hear anything, so he tried the door handle.

Unlike that morning, this time the door was locked.

Sam sighed in frustration and took out his lockpick. It only took him five seconds to get inside the house, but the whole time he kept imagining that mosquitoes were swarming him and eating him alive. He was more than relieved when he finally slipped inside and quickly closed the door behind him.

The house was in complete darkness, so Sam snapped his flashlight back on to take a look around. No one was on the ground floor, but as he approached the stairs he could hear a faint sound coming from the hidden basement.

For some inexplicable reason, he started to feel nervous. Chances were, Chamberlain was keeping his poisonous pets in the basement, and as soon as he realized he'd been discovered, he could easily sic them on Sam without him being able to do a damn thing to stop it. You can't exactly shoot bugs, after all, and he and Dean didn't own beekeeper equipment or personal shields made of mosquito netting. As soon as he lifted that staircase, he was probably guaranteeing himself as this guy's next victim.

After a moment's reflection, he started to wonder whether his nerves were a sign that he was already infected.

Before he could spook himself out any further, he took a deep breath and forced himself to snap out of it. Dean needed him, and that was all there was to it. He steeled himself, lifted the staircase, and burst down into the basement laboratory.

The element of surprise seemed to work in his favour - he heard a frightened yelp as he ran down the stairs, and he entered the room just in time to see a small man dressed in full beekeeping gear spin around so fast with his hands raised above his head that half the equipment on the table beside him went crashing onto the floor. It was a sight almost too ridiculous to believe, and for a moment Sam wished Dean was there to see it, if only so they could laugh about it together after the case was done.

"Step away from the beakers, Gavin," Sam demanded with his gun aimed menacingly at the man's chest.

Gavin didn't move a muscle, his hands still raised and the potions behind him bubbling and steaming away happily.

"I said step away, Gavin. Now!"

Gavin slowly lowered his hands and struck a slightly more defiant pose. "W-what'll you d-do if I d-d-don't?"

Now Sam was downright puzzled. Despite the stammer and his initial reaction to Sam's unexpected arrival, this guy didn't sound scared at all. He was puny and nerdy, that much Sam could tell, but he seemed to have a confidence that no doubt stemmed from the feelings of power and control he'd gained from his little experiments.

Still, Sam was the one with the upper hand right now - he had a gun pointed at the kid, and as far as he could tell, Gavin had nothing.

"I'm pointing a gun at you, man," he said, inching closer as he prepared to grab the guy. "What do you think I'm gonna do?"

Sam couldn't see his face very well through the mask, but he could have sworn the kid smirked. "I th-think you're gonna d-d-die screaming," he said. And then he said something in a language Sam couldn't identify.

Before Sam had time to react, he was surrounded by mosquitoes. He tried making a break for the stairs, but Gavin was already on the move, and he tripped Sam up as he passed him by. The bugs swarmed him to the point that he couldn't even see, and he could feel the sharp pin-pricks from his head to his ankles as they literally began eating him alive. All he could do was curl up in a ball, close his eyes, cover his ears, and wait for it to be over.

It happened much sooner than he'd expected. After only a few seconds, the bugs seemed to disappear. He no longer felt them crawling all over him, and even the prickling feeling of the bites had stopped. He figured they knew somehow that the job was done and had gone back to wherever they'd been hiding, and he slowly cracked his eyes open to take a look around.

What he saw was a couple hundred dead mosquitoes lying on the floor around him.

"What the hell?" Sam jumped to his feet and pushed up one of his sleeves to get a look at his arm. It was covered in tiny puncture marks, some with a droplet of blood to mark the spot. They had definitely bitten him. He could only assume that they were supposed to drop dead once they had fulfilled their purpose.

He didn't know how much longer he had before he would start going crazy, so he decided to just let Gavin go while he spent his final sane moments tearing the laboratory apart in search of answers. He had nothing to lose now by tampering with unknown substances, and he doubted that Gavin would return to the scene of his crime until he could be sure that Sam and his gun would be long gone. All he had to do was figure out what he had done and how to reverse it.

This proved easier said than done - Sam found Gavin's notebooks without any problems, but deciphering the code his notes were written in was another matter. "Damn kid really is smart," Sam said, tossing the tenth coded notebook he'd found onto the floor in frustration. He sighed and looked at his watch. Fifteen minutes had passed since he'd been infected. He seemed to recall that Dean had started showing signs of anxiety and agitation around the time that they'd left the cottage, and that must have been about fifteen minutes after Dean was bitten, too. He stood completely still for a moment, trying to gauge whether or not his symptoms had begun yet.

Aside from the frustration and impatience of knowing he was running out of time, he really didn't feel any different.

"Why aren't I freaking out yet?" he mused aloud as he surveyed the pile of dead mosquitoes around the place where he'd fallen. "Dean was only bitten once, and they got me a thousand times." Sure, this could have been the kind of contagion that works the same no matter how much you're exposed to it, but something about the whole thing just didn't feel right.

He glanced at his watch again and then back to the dead mosquitoes as he mulled it over. Suddenly he realized what was bugging him - his arm was completely clean. There was no longer any sign whatsoever that he'd been bitten.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

Dean was floating. Floating on the open seas. No, wait... there was no water. He was floating in the air. Floating? No, flying. Falling!

"The plane's crashing!" he cried, trying to reach out and grab hold of something. He didn't understand at first why he couldn't, but then he realized that his hands were tied. He thrashed around and cried out for help, but no one answered or came to his aid. Falling... falling... Why was it taking so long? Why hadn't they hit the ground yet? God, if only they could hit the ground, it would all be over.

"Dean? Hey! Dean."

He felt someone shake his shoulder, and suddenly the plane levelled out and he went back to floating again. He tried to turn his head to see who it was, but the movement just made the plane tilt and sway. He closed his eyes and groaned, trying again to grab something to hold onto.

"Hey, it's okay," the voice said as he felt a hand grip his in a strong handshake. "I'm right here."

Dean thought he recognized Sam's voice, but the rushing wind in his ears was too loud for him to make it out. He tried to speak, but everything was getting heavy and distant again.

"Just go back to sleep, Dean."

Sleep? The last thing he wanted to do was sleep, but he didn't seem to have a choice. Despite his desperate fight to stay awake and defend himself from danger, he kept swimming in and out of consciousness, always aware that someone was there beside him, but unable to speak or acknowledge them. Sometimes this fact alone was enough to cause him inner panic - what if it was someone who meant him harm, and he was just lying there, defenseless and vulnerable? Then he would feel his muscles involuntarily contract as though he were lashing out at something, but the movements never seemed to make any sense, and he couldn't control them no matter how hard he tried.

Eventually the soft voice would break through again, and he would start to calm down. Sometimes he was sure it was Sam, but other times it almost sounded like Dad. Either way, it was good to know they were there. If only they weren't so far away.

At one point, during a brief reprieve from all the floating and falling, Dean got the feeling that he was alone again. The constant presence at his side was gone. He tried to turn his head and open his eyes, but that just brought back the spinning. He was just attempting to get his voice working again when he heard a low murmur from somewhere in the distance.

He strained his ears to hear, but the wind started whipping past his ears again. Over the constant roar, he only managed to make out one word - "...immune."

Immune? What a useless word. That wouldn't help him with the floating and the falling at all. He strained his ears even harder.

"...maybe... spell... demon..."

Demon? Every muscle in Dean's body tensed. Demons and spells? Was that what was happening to him? Was he in Hell again? God, why couldn't he _move_?

"...Dean's toast."

Dean's anger rose above his fear with those words. He didn't like them, and he certainly didn't like the voice that had said them. It was a female voice - one that he knew well enough to know that it elicited feelings of hatred and revulsion in him, even though his addled mind couldn't put a name or a face to it.

Suddenly it was laughing at him, taunting him, appearing before him with a demonic face to leer at him in his helpless state. He cried out and tried to fight it off, but he was tied to the rack too tightly. That just made him panic all the more, until he was shaking uncontrollably with fear and the need to run away.

He felt the presence at his side again, but this time he knew it was Alastair. He felt the first stab of the blade in his arm, and everything started to go foggy.

And then he was floating again.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox

Sam withdrew the needle from Dean's arm, thankful to see that the sedative was kicking in so quickly as Dean relaxed out of the convulsions and began to lose consciousness. If he hadn't been freaked out over Dean's condition to begin with, he sure as hell was when the convulsions had started. He sat for a long moment by his brother's side to make sure he was really out this time, and then shot a glare over his shoulder at Ruby as he stood up.

"Keep your voice down," he said quietly as he walked back over to her. "And don't you ever say that about my brother again."

"I'm just trying to be realistic here, Sam," Ruby said in her usual matter-of-fact way. "I know he's your brother, and you'd do anything to save him..."

"Yes," Sam interrupted firmly. "_Anything_."

Ruby's face softened. "I'm just saying, maybe there isn't anything you _can_ do this time."

Sam clenched his jaw and shook his head. "I can find that kid," he said. "I can get him to tell us what spell he used on those bugs and force him to reverse it."

"You could." Ruby's eyes narrowed as she searched his face. "But you didn't need to call me here if you already had such a fool-proof plan."

"No." Sam fidgeted on the spot and took a deep breath. He hated himself for what he was about to say, but he didn't feel like he had a choice. "Like I said... it makes sense to me that my immunity comes from the demon blood. Those bugs all dropped dead as soon as they took a bite. They probably just didn't get a chance to infect me."

Ruby smiled and nodded knowingly. "So you're saying you want a fresh dose just in case."

Sam flinched at hearing the words said aloud. "He might come at me with more bugs next time, and I just... want to be sure."

Ruby's smile grew.

Sam glared at her in exasperation. "What?"

She shook her head and kept on smiling. "I just find it interesting that you've jumped on the first excuse to have more, yet you still can't say the words."

Sam felt his face contort in disgust. "I'm not jumping on an excuse."

"Sure seems that way from where I'm standing."

Sam bit back an angry retort, knowing she was just trying to bait him into losing his temper so she could claim offense and have something to hold over his head. It had worked too many times in the past for him to fall for it this time. "Are you going to let me have more or not?" he demanded.

Ruby smiled up at him in mock sweetness. "Since you asked so nicely," she said with a smirk. She walked across the room, indicating for Sam to follow her. She lifted her leg to rest her foot on a bale of hay, drew a knife from her boot, and sat down.

Sam hated that he followed her and knelt down in front of her like a puppy begging for a treat. He tried to squash the feeling of excitement and anticipation that he always felt during their little ritual, but he couldn't deny that he enjoyed the high he experienced each time. It wasn't a side of himself that he was proud of, so he tried his best not to let it show, and he certainly didn't let it dictate the decisions he made. Hadn't he resisted the cravings for months after Dean had found out about his powers? He'd only gone back to Ruby to save the world, and he was only taking another dose so soon to save his brother's life.

All these justifications and more ran through his mind as he drank. It was the same thought process he used every time - anything to keep from getting lost in the high or letting the guilt eat him alive. With every mouthful he wanted more, but he forced himself to stay in control and stop after just a few.

Ruby laughed and stroked his hair as he wiped his mouth and licked the remaining blood off his fingers. "Holding back this time?"

It annoyed Sam that he enjoyed her touch at times like this, so he pulled away from her hand and stood up. "I told you, I just needed enough to be sure I'm still immune."

"Right." Ruby put her knife away and rose to her feet. "But you know, it won't be long before you'll be killing demons rather than just exorcising them."

"Not exactly important right now," Sam said irritably.

"Gotcha." Ruby sauntered over to the spot by the door where she'd dumped her bag and picked it up. "So, I guess we're done?"

"No. I need you to stay and keep an eye on Dean while I go after this guy."

Ruby rolled her eyes and gave Sam a peeved look. "What am I, your damn babysitter?"

"You'll be whatever I tell you to be," Sam said as he moved toward her slowly, his hands twitching with the desire to be used.

Ruby stared at him with an expression that seemed partly amused, partly impressed. He knew that deep down she was always a little afraid that one day the pupil would turn on the teacher, and now that he was rapidly approaching the point where he would be able to get by without her, he'd noticed that she was suddenly being more helpful and obedient to him than ever. Most of the time it almost seemed genuine, but he had to admit he'd been milking her loyalty for all it was worth lately. She often seemed flattered by his trust and appreciated that he needed her, and the few times that he'd been manipulative with her he could have sworn she was actually proud of him.

Still, she had no real reason to agree to "babysit" Dean while Sam did all the work towards saving him, so he was fully prepared to use the ace up his sleeve this time and threaten her with spontaneous exorcism if he had to.

Ruby seemed to understand this without needing to be told. She dropped her bag again and gave a nonchalant shrug. "What do you want me to do?"

Sam smiled in relief - after all, he didn't relish the idea of killing his only real ally in the battle against Lilith. "Just make sure he stays sedated," he said, pointing out the morphine and giving her a few brief instructions on dosage. "Oh, and make sure he doesn't see you," he added. "Think you can handle that?"

Ruby rolled her eyes, but nodded. "Just wish I'd brought a magazine to help me pass the time."

Sam gave her a warning look as he moved toward the door. "I'll be as fast as I can," he said. He hesitated then, looking back at Dean as his mind started whirling with second thoughts. If Dean was having convulsions, that meant his condition must be getting pretty bad. Sam hated to leave him like this, but he knew that if he stayed, Dean would die.

Ruby's face softened as she saw the battle going on inside him. "I'll take good care of him. I promise," she said. "Go, Sam."

Sam went.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

It took Sam a lot longer to make his way through the woods this time, thanks to the search teams that were now sweeping the area. Sam could only guess that they'd called in reinforcements, because he seemed to narrowly escape bumping into a new group every ten seconds.

Still, their search grid seemed to be sloppy, and Sam knew how to move quickly without leaving a trail to follow, so he wasn't all that worried about being found. His main concern was their proximity to the barn - not so much out of fear for Dean's safety, but fear of what Ruby might do to anyone who stumbled upon their hiding place. He hadn't exactly given her strict instructions not to kill any intruders.

But he didn't have time to worry about that yet. He soon found himself back at the veterinary clinic, which was now in darkness aside from a faint glow behind the curtain of one of the ground floor windows. The back door was still broken and barely hanging on its hinges, but since these people had been so helpful to him even after he scared the wits out of them earlier that night, he figured he should do them the courtesy of knocking this time.

Moments later, he saw the face of the veterinarian peering out of the dimly lit window. Sam waved, hoping the man would understand that he posed no threat. He seemed to get the message, and soon he appeared at the back door and timidly pushed it open.

"Did the morphine not work?" he asked, concerned.

"No, it was fine," Sam assured him. "He's resting comfortably. Thanks."

"Then... what..."

"I just need a little more information about Gavin Chamberlain, if there's anything else you can tell me."

The man sighed and nodded, ushering Sam inside. "What do you need to know?"

"Well... I have reason to believe that he has something to do with what's been happening to the people in this town, and I really need to find him. He ran when I found him at his cottage, so... do you have any idea where he might have gone? Somewhere he would feel safe?"

The doctor looked puzzled, but not particularly surprised at Sam's words. He thought for a moment and then answered, "Well, I suppose there's always his parents' house. They're away for the winter, so the place is empty."

"Great, that sounds perfect. Do you have the address?"

The man hesitated, eyeing Sam warily. "May I ask what you plan to _do_ to Gavin Chamberlain when you find him?"

Something inside Sam withered at the question. There was a time when in situations like this he would be asking it himself, but now... now he knew that he had to do whatever he had to do. "Hopefully," he said as carefully as he could, "I'll stop him from hurting anybody else."

It wasn't exactly a satisfactory answer and Sam knew it, but it got him the address, and after offering the veterinarian many sincere thanks, he was on his way to the center of town.

Not that getting there was easy. It seemed downright impossible at times, considering all the cops and feds crawling all over the place. It had been a whole lot easier to dodge them in the dark woods than on the brightly lit streets of town, but somehow he arrived at his destination and scaled the fence to the backyard just in time to avoid being spotted by a squad car.

The house was in total darkness, but Sam could tell at first glance that it was dirty and rundown, as though the people living there never lifted a finger toward its upkeep. Even the yard was overgrown with weeds and grass that were up to Sam's knees.

He was beginning to understand why Gavin kept his cottage obsessively neat and spotless - it was his own way of rebelling against the lives his parents were leading.

The back door was locked, so Sam picked the lock and showed himself inside. He knew it was a long shot that Gavin would be hiding out in such an obvious place, but he had to start his search somewhere. He figured he might at least find some clue of where to look next.

He hadn't been in the house for more than thirty seconds when he heard the sound of a voice coming from the basement.

With his weapon ready, he tiptoed across the house looking for the basement door, trying not to step on any squeaky floorboards along the way. He half expected this place to have a hidden staircase somewhere, too, but fortunately it was a normal house with a basement door leading off the kitchen. There was a light coming from down below - flickering with an orange glow, so Sam figured it must be firelight. He crept down the stairs and peeked around the corner into the room that both the light and the voice were coming from.

There was the beekeeper outfit again. This time he was standing over an open flame, holding up a bowl full of some kind of liquid and chanting something with a stutter so thick that Sam wondered if the spell would really work at all.

He didn't want to give the guy time enough for him to find out. He stepped out into the open and for the second time that day pointed his gun at Gavin's chest. "You know, it's rude to run out on someone in the middle of a conversation," he said.

The sudden voice startled Gavin, and the bowl and its mysterious contents fell to the floor. "Y-y-you! Y-y-you're... y-you sh-should..."

"Be dead?" Sam finished, inching closer to the terrified little man. "Yeah, I get that a lot. But since I'm not, how about you tell me what the hell you've done to the people in this town and how to reverse it?"

Gavin hesitated, rocking back and forth on his heel as though inwardly arguing with himself over whether to stay or make a run for it. Then he seemed to gather up his confidence as he moved his head to look at something on the other side of the room.

Sam could see it coming a mile away, and he planted himself firmly in the doorway between Gavin and the stairs just as Gavin once again spoke his magic words.

This time Sam saw exactly where the bugs were coming from - a weird contraption on the other side of the room that seemed like a cross between a refrigerator and an air conditioner. Hundreds of them were pouring out of the vent on one side.

Sam groaned as the swarm surrounded him, but he held his arms out to his sides and aimed a glare at Gavin as the bugs began to bite.

He stood motionless as they dropped dead all around him.

Gavin had been slowly approaching, waiting for Sam to panic or try to escape so that he could slip out the door, but when he saw what was happening he started backing away in fear. "Wh-wh-what a-a-_are_ y-you??"

Sam didn't answer, knowing the bugs would just invade his mouth if he opened it, but he figured the effect of the dying bugs along with the eerie shadows reflected onto his face from the firelight would be enough to scare the kid into doing whatever he wanted.

Turned out he'd figured correctly. Gavin shrieked out more words in the unknown language, and the few remaining mosquitoes flew back to their nest.

"H-h-how..."

Sam raised his gun again, cutting Gavin off mid-stutter. "How about I ask the questions now, okay? What have you done to the people in this town? What's the deal with the bugs?"

Gavin shuffled his feet, his gaze darting around the room as though searching for another way to deal with this super-human intruder.

Sam sighed, tucked his gun back into his pants, and marched over to him, grabbing him by the front of his costume and ripping at it as he dragged Gavin kicking and screaming over to the mosquito contraption. "You're gonna tell me one way or another, Gavin," Sam said as he tore off a glove and exposed Gavin's bare hand. "You can tell me now, or you can tell me while hallucinating. It's up to you."

Gavin screamed as Sam forced his bare hand closer to the machine while turning the handle on its front-facing door. "O-o-okay!! I-I-I-I..."

Sam let him go, but blocked his path so he couldn't move. "Tell me what you did and how to reverse it," he repeated.

Gavin took a deep breath and finally attempted to answer the question. It took him a while to get it out, but between all the stammering, Sam got that he had infected the bugs with a mild virus and placed some kind of spell on them to both control when and where they attacked and to amplify the virus to a lethal degree. "B-b-but th-th-those p-p-people de-s-s-served..."

"No, they didn't," Sam said. He picked up the spell books Gavin had been reading when Sam had walked in, grabbed Gavin by the scruff of his neck, and dragged him toward the door. "And you're gonna reverse the spell and send everyone back to normal, or you'll be getting what _you_ deserve."

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox

Dean was vaguely aware as he floated through the clouds that something wasn't right. He knew he had been afraid moments before, but he couldn't remember why or of what. He had an unexplainable feeling that he should be looking for Sam, but he couldn't seem to control his own movements as he floated along, and for some reason that was okay with him. His eyes were closed, and he didn't want to waste any energy trying to open them unless it was absolutely necessary. He just lay back and let the clouds carry him along.

But then suddenly the clouds were gone, and he was falling again. His eyes flew open and he tried to look down at the ground, but he couldn't tell which way was up and which was down... there was nothing but blackness in every direction. He screamed and started clawing at the air, trying to catch hold of something, anything to stop him from falling yet again into the pit of Hell.

Soon he felt a presence at his side, and demon-white eyes flashed in the darkness. Alastair.

He tried to lash out at him, but his arms felt like lead and refused to move. The face disappeared, but he still felt that evil presence nearby, and at one point was sure he saw a glint of light reflecting off a blade. He braced himself for the torture to begin, but as the seconds passed and his mind became clearer with every moment, the thought of just allowing himself to be hacked to pieces for the millionth time became intolerable.

Feigning unconsciousness, he waited for the presence to draw nearer. He felt it approaching, hovering over him, ready to strike. Without even opening his eyes, he brought his head up suddenly and felt his forehead connect with something hard. He heard a loud cry, but it wasn't Alastair's voice after all... this voice was female.

_Lilith._

His ankles seemed to be bound together, but he was still able to lift his legs, so he summoned up all the energy he had to spare and thrust his knees into the air, swinging his hips in the direction of his attacker. He heard a dull thud as his knees made impact.

He managed to flip himself over onto his stomach as he followed the motion through, and he found himself on his hands and knees with Lilith sprawled out beside him. With a snarl he grabbed her throat between his bound hands and pressed them down with all his might.

Her arms flailed wildly at first, her fists striking him but not doing any damage. But then she uttered an angry curse and grabbed his side.

Fiery pain seared through Dean's entire upper body, and he had no choice but to let her go and crumble to the ground in agony.

He was sure he was finished. There was no way Lilith would let him get off easy after what he'd done. He tried to crawl away, but his energy was spent. He curled up in a ball and waited for the worst.

But then he felt a hand on his back and a reassuring voice in his ear, and it seemed like someone was turning him over onto his back. His eyelids were heavy, but he was sure it was Sam's face he saw as he fought to hold them open. All of Hell was swimming in and out of focus behind him, but he focused on that one image of comfort and rescue as his eyes started to droop and finally closed again.

And then he was back among the clouds.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox

"What the hell happened?" Sam demanded as Ruby hoisted herself onto her feet and backed away from Dean's corner.

"That morphine doesn't last very long, that's what happened," Ruby answered, rubbing her throat and glaring down at Dean's still form.

Sam lifted Dean's eyelids to make sure he was out. "I told you to give him more if he woke up," he said, checking him over for any fresh injuries.

"I tried! He attacked me! But hey, I'm fine, thanks for asking."

Sam was so not in the mood for her sarcasm, and told her so with the glare he shot in her direction. "I told you to stay out of sight, Ruby," he snapped.

"What could I do? He was freaking out!"

"You should have called me."

"Oh, right. Well, I'm sorry for thinking your quest to save this town took priority over your brother having a nightmare."

Sam gritted his teeth and shook his head, giving Dean one last once-over to make sure he was okay.

Ruby came back over to stand beside him now that she was sure Dean was unconscious. "I didn't hurt him, Sam," she said almost softly. "I just grabbed his bullet wound so he'd let me go."

"It's fine. He's out now." Sam stood up and looked over to where he'd left Gavin huddled by the wall on the opposite side of the barn. Right next to him was a pile of bodies that Sam hadn't seen when he'd first walked in.

He felt his anger boiling as he turned an even more ferocious glare on Ruby. "What did you do?!"

"Whoa, take it easy," Ruby said, backing up a step with her hands raised. "I just knocked them out. They came sniffing around a few minutes ago."

"And if their friends come looking for them?"

Ruby smirked. "I faked a check-in on their radio. Created a lot of static so they couldn't hear my voice clearly and told them this section was clear and they were heading in the opposite direction."

Sam didn't want to let her know how grateful he was for the way she'd handled the situation, so he shrugged it off with a quick thanks and waved his hand in Gavin's direction. "Go help him."

Ruby looked back and forth between them. "Help him do what?"

"He needs to work a spell to reverse all of this."

Ruby stared at Gavin dumbfounded as he removed his headgear and nervously looked around. "That's the guy who did this?"

Sam rolled his eyes. "Yes. Could you save your disbelief for later and just go help him out?"

"Fine, whatever." Ruby sauntered over to the kid, and Sam watched as she immediately asserted her control and started barking out orders.

Sam smiled, knowing she had the situation well in hand. Then he turned back to Dean with worried eyes. He had no idea how long the spell would take, and Dean was already stirring, tossing his head back and forth as though fighting against the sedative. He knew that giving him more morphine so soon would be dangerous, but he really didn't want to have to watch him suffer any longer.

He rested a hand on Dean's arm and gave it just enough of a squeeze to let him know he was there. "Just hang in there, Dean," he said. "It's almost over."


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

He knew that Sam was beside him, but he couldn't seem to move or speak or give any indication whatsoever that he was alive. He hoped Sam didn't think he was dead. It would suck to have to dig himself out of his own grave again.

_"Just hang in there, Dean."_

The words sounded almost as floaty as Dean felt. But how was he supposed to hang in anywhere when he couldn't even move?

_"It's almost over."_

He knew that was true. He could feel himself slipping back down into the abyss already, and Sam's voice was sounding farther and farther away. He knew it wouldn't be long now until he was too far down to ever come back.

Yet Sam was still right there beside him. Was he falling, too?

That thought gave Dean the will to fight again. If he was falling with Sam right beside him, that meant he was pulling Sam down with him! He couldn't let that happen. He tried to lift himself up, but his muscles wouldn't respond. They began to tremble instead, and the harder he tried to move, the more they shook.

_"Whoa, Dean... calm down, okay? I'm right here."_

He felt hands on his arms, holding him down as the shaking grew worse and worse. At first he was afraid it was someone trying to prevent his escape or push him even further down into the pit, but then he remembered... Sam was there.

_"I'm right here."_

He was right there.

_"Just stay with me, Dean."_

To the end, Sam.

But then the end was over. The fog began to lift from his mind. He could hear voices... two he recognized, and one he didn't. But the unfamiliar one didn't bother him - it was the fact that one of the voices sounded just like Ruby that broke through the remaining fog and made him try to crack open his eyes.

"Sam?"

He felt a rush of movement at his side, and his eyes opened just in time to see Sam's face - Sam's very relieved-looking face - appear in front of him. "Hey, Dean. How are you feeling?"

Dean did a somewhat sluggish mental inventory. The fog was almost completely gone now, aside from a slight buzz. He remembered floating, and he remembered falling into Hell, but it all seemed like it happened years ago. He felt cold, he felt lightheaded, he felt a dull pain in his side, he felt... "Hungry."

Sam smiled. "Yeah, I bet. You've been out of it for almost a full day."

Dean went to sit up, but he found that he couldn't move his hands. Then he remembered the feeling of being restrained during all the floating and falling. "Hands?" he said.

"Right. Sorry."

Sam quickly untied his hands and feet and helped Dean up into a sitting position. The room spun around a few times, but soon settled back into place. Dean looked around for the source of the other voices, but the room seemed to be empty aside from him, Sam, and a pile of cops.

A pile of cops?

"What happened?"

Sam followed his gaze and gave him a sheepish look. "Long story," he said. "We should probably get out of here as soon as you're able to walk."

"Here?" Dean wasn't sure he trusted his memory to tell him where they were, so he didn't even bother to consult it.

"Yeah, that old barn? Remember, we came to town to figure out why people were going crazy?"

Dean nodded slowly. "Oh, that."

"Turned out to be mosquitoes."

"Mosquitoes?" Dean raised a hand to rub the back of his neck. "I got bit," he said, finally understanding.

"Yeah." Sam looked like he wanted to say more, but that was all that came out. Even barely aware of his surroundings, Dean could still tell when the guy was hiding something.

"Did I hear Ruby a minute ago?" he asked point-blank. He knew Sam would never tell him anything like that any other way.

Sure enough, Sam looked reluctant to speak for a second. "Uh... yeah. I needed someone to help take care of you while I tracked down the guy doing the spellwork, so..."

"You got a demon to babysit me?" Dean's anger and revulsion at the thought woke him up good.

"No one else could get into town," Sam said apologetically.

"So where is she now?"

"She took Gavin, um... spellwork guy... back to his place to, uh... dispose of all of his equipment and spell books."

"She gonna burn the place down?"

"Pretty much." Sam chuckled. "She used some of her demon mojo on him, too, just to put the fear of God in him. Well... fear of Satan, I guess." Sam's smile disappeared when he saw the black look Dean was giving him. He cleared his throat and nodded. "So that and the fact that the mosquitoes dropped dead from biting me freaked him out enough that I don't think we need to worry about him seeking revenge through spellwork anymore."

Dean tilted his head in curiosity. "They dropped dead? Why?"

Sam looked nervous for a moment, but he shook his head and shrugged. "I'm guessing the demon blood," he said, attempting nonchalance. "When I stopped to think about it, mosquitoes have never really bothered with me, even when I was a kid."

Dean hadn't really thought about it before, but now that Sam mentioned it, he figured he had a point. Still, there was something about the whole situation that was making Sam act all sketchy. He wanted to ask what it was, but his head was starting to hurt, and it was probably just the whole freak-of-nature thing anyway.

"Think you can stand?" Sam asked, reaching out to help Dean to his feet.

"Always." Dean allowed Sam to haul him up, leaning on him heavily as he teetered back and forth on his unsteady legs.

Sam helped him over to the door, then picked up both of their packs and swung them over his shoulders. When he had them set, he took Dean's arm and opened the barn door. "Ready to go?"

Dean nodded and they stepped outside, Dean focusing all his energy on placing one foot in front of the other. "There'd better not be any more bugs," he murmured as they started their long trek into the woods.

The End


End file.
